Language acquisition in two trilingual children

• Autores: Charlotte Hoffmann
• Localización: Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, ISSN 0143-4632, Vol. 6, Nº. 6, 1985, págs. 479-495
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Dialnet Métricas: 3 Citas
• Resumen

  • This article deals with the language development of two children, now aged eight and five, who acquired two languages, Spanish and German, simultaneously from birth, and a third, English, when very young. The different circumstances of the acquisition of the third language have resulted in distinct patterns of linguistic development and proficiency. The article first considers certain linguistic aspects of language development and goes on to take into account wider social and psychological factors which have influenced the children's rate of acquisition, the proficiency attained and the communicative strategies employed. Reference is made to the largely similar acquisition of the phonological, grammatical and lexical systems of German and Spanish. This is followed by a brief outline of their acquisition of English, which followed a slightly different process in the case of each child. Mention is also made of the older child's experience of learning to read in her first two languages. The overall aim is to make a contribution to longitudinal case studies of the development of bilingual children. Attention is therefore focused on the issues normally associated with this development, including social and psychological aspects: patterns of interference and code‐switching, language dominance, the role of parents, the social environment and the child's personality.